CHAPTER XIII.

page: 219

CHAPTER XIII

THE ROBBER AND THE BURGLAR

A DAY or two after Noël came back from Hastings there was snow; it was
jolly. And we cleared it off the path. A man to do it is sixpence at least, and
you should always save when you can. A penny saved is a penny earned. And then
we thought it would be nice to clear it off the top of the portico, where it
lies so thick, and the edges as if they had been cut with a knife. And just as
we had got out of the landing‐window on to the portico, the Water Rates came up
the path with his book that he tears the thing out of that says how much you
have got to pay, and the little ink‐bottle hung on to his buttonhole in case you
should pay him. Father says the Water Rates is a sensible man, and knows it is
always well to be prepared for whatever happens, however
page: 220 unlikely. Alice said afterwards that she rather liked
the Water Rates, really, and Noël said he had a face like a good vizier, or the
man who rewards the honest boy for restoring the purse, but we did not think
about these things at the time, and as the Water Rates came up the steps, we
shovelled down a great square slab of snow like an avalanche—and it fell right
on his head . Two of us thought of it at the same moment, so it was quite a
large avalanche. And when the Water Rates had shaken himself he rang the bell.
It was Saturday, and Father was at home. We know now that it is very wrong and
ungentlemanly to shovel snow off porticoes on to the Water Rates, or any other
person, and we hope he did not catch a cold, and we are very sorry. We
apologized to the Water Rates when Father told us to. We were all sent to bed
for it.

We all deserved the punishment, because the others would have shovelled down snow
just as we did if they’d thought of it—only they are not so quick at thinking of
things as we are. And even quite wrong things sometimes lead to adventures; as
every one knows who has ever read about pirates or highwaymen.

page: 221

Eliza hates us to be sent to bed early, because it means her having to bring
meals up, and it means lighting the fire in Noël’s room ever so much earlier
than usual. He had to have a fire because he still had a bit of a cold. But this
particular day we got Eliza into a good temper by giving her a horrid brooch
with pretending amethysts in it, that an aunt once gave to Alice, so Eliza
brought up an extra scuttle of coals, and when the greengrocer came with the
potatoes (he is always late on Saturdays) she got some chestnuts from him. So
that when we heard Father go out after his dinner, there was a jolly fire in
Noël’s room, and we were able to go in and be Red Indians in blankets most
comfortably. Eliza had gone out; she says she gets things cheaper on Saturday
nights. She has a great friend, who sells fish at a shop, and he is very
generous, and lets her have herrings for less than half the natural price.

So we were all alone in the house; Pincher was out with Eliza, and we talked
about robbers. And Dora thought it would be a dreadful trade, but Dicky
said—

“I think it would be very interesting. And you would only rob rich people, and be
very generous to the poor and needy, like Claude Duval.”

page: 222

Dora said, “It is wrong to be a robber.”

“Yes,” said Alice, “you would never know a happy hour. Think of trying to sleep
with the stolen jewels under your bed, and remembering all the quantities of
policemen and detectives that there are in the world!”

“There are ways of being robbers that are not wrong,” said Noël; “if you can rob
a robber it is a right act.”

“Yes you can, and it isn’t; and murdering him with boiling oil is a right act,
too, so there!” said Noël. “What about Ali Baba? Now then!” And we felt it was a
score for Noël.

“What would you do if there was a robber?” said Alice.

H.O. said he would kill him with boiling oil; but Alice explained that she meant
a real robber—now—this minute—in the house.

Oswald and Dicky did not say; but Noël said he thought it would only be fair to
ask the robber quite politely and quietly to go away, and then if he didn’t you
could deal with him.

Now what I am going to tell you is a very strange and wonderful thing, and I hope
you
page: 223 will be able to believe it. I should
not, if a boy told me, unless I knew him to be a man of honour, and perhaps not
then unless he gave his sacred word. But it is true, all the same, and it only
shows that the days of romance and daring deeds are not yet at an end.

Alice was just asking Noël how he would deal with the robber who
wouldn’t go if he was asked politely and quietly, when we heard a noise
downstairs—quite a plain noise, not the kind of noise you fancy you hear. It was
like somebody moving a chair. We held our breath and listened—and then came
another noise, like some one poking a fire. Now, you remember there was no one
to poke a fire or move a chair downstairs, because Eliza and
Father were both out. They could not have come in without our hearing them,
because the front door is as hard to shut as the back one, and whichever you go
in by you have to give a slam that you can hear all down the street.

H.O. and Alice and Dora caught hold of each other’s blankets and looked at Dicky
and Oswald, and every one was quite pale. And Noël whispered—

“It’s ghosts, I know it is”—and then we
page: 224
listened again, but there was no more noise. Presently Dora said in a
whisper—

“Whatever shall we do? Oh, whatever shall we do—what shall we
do?”

And she kept on saying it till we had to tell her to shut up.

O reader, have you ever been playing Red Indians in blankets round a bedroom fire
in a house where you thought there was no one but you—and then suddenly heard a
noise like a chair, and a fire being poked, downstairs? Unless you have you will
not be able to imagine at all what it feels like. It was not like in books; our
hair did not stand on end at all, and we never said ”Hist!” once, but our feet
got very cold, though we were in blankets by the fire, and the insides of
Oswald’s hands got warm and wet, and his nose was cold like a dog’s, and his
ears were burning hot.

The girls said afterwards that they shivered with terror, and their teeth
chattered, but we did not see or hear this at the time.

“Shall we open the window and call police?” said Dora; and then Oswald suddenly
thought of something, and he breathed more freely and he said—

“I know it’s not ghosts, and I don’t believe
page: 225 it’s robbers. I expect it’s a stray cat got in when
the coals came this morning, and she’s been hiding in the cellar, and now she’s
moving about. Let’s go down and see.”

The girls wouldn’t, of course; but I could see that they breathed more freely
too. But Dicky said, “All right; I will if you will.”

H.O. said, “Do you think it’s really a cat?” So we said he had
better stay with the girls. And of course after that we had to let him and Alice
both come. Dora said if we took Noël down with his cold, she would scream
“Fire!” and “Murder!” and she didn’t mind if the whole street heard.

So Noël agreed to be getting his clothes on, and the rest of us said we would go
down and look for the cat.

Now Oswald said that about the cat, and it made it easier to go
down, but in his inside he did not feel at all sure that it might not be robbers
after all. Of course, we had often talked about robbers before, but it is very
different when you sit in a room and listen and listen and listen; and Oswald
felt somehow that it would be easier to go down and see what it was, than to
wait, and listen, and wait, and wait, and listen, and wait, and then perhaps to
hear It, whatever it was, come
page: 226
creeping slowly up the stairs as softly as It could with
Its boots off, and the stairs creaking, towards the room where
we were with the door open in case of Eliza coming back suddenly, and all dark
on the landings. And then it would have been just as bad, and it would have
lasted longer, and you would have known you were a coward besides. Dicky says he
felt all these same things. Many people would say we were young heroes to go
down as we did; so I have tried to explain, because no young hero wishes to have
more credit than he deserves.

The landing gas was turned down low—just a blue bead—and we four went out very
softly, wrapped in our blankets, and we stood on the top of the stairs a good
long time before we began to go down. And we listened and listened till our ears
buzzed.

And Oswald whispered to Dicky, and Dicky went into our room and fetched the large
toy pistol that is a foot long, and that has the trigger broken, and I took it
because I am the eldest; and I don’t think either of us thought it was the cat
now. But Alice and H.O. did. Dicky got the poker out of Noël’s room, and told
Dora it was to settle the cat with when we caught her.

page: 227

Then Oswald whispered, “Let’s play at burglars; Dicky and I are armed to the
teeth, we will go first. You keep a flight behind us, and be a reinforcement if
we are attacked. Or you can retreat and defend the women and children in the
fortress, if you’d rather.”

But they said they would be a reinforcement.

Oswald’s teeth chattered a little when he spoke. It is not with anything else
except cold.

So Dicky and Oswald crept down, and when we got to the bottom of the stairs, we
saw Father’s study door just ajar, and the crack of light. And Oswald was so
pleased to see the light, knowing that burglars prefer the dark, or at any rate
the dark lantern, that he felt really sure it was the cat after
all, and then he thought it would be fun to make the others upstairs think it
was really a robber. So he cocked the pistol—you can cock it, but it doesn’t go
off—and he said, “Come on, Dick!” and he rushed at the study door and burst into
the room, crying, “Surrender! you are discovered! Surrender, or I fire! Throw up
your hands!”

And, as he finished saying it, he saw before
page: 228
him, standing on the study hearthrug, a Real Robber. There was no mistake about
it. Oswald was sure it was a robber, because it had a screwdriver in its hands,
and was standing near the cupboard door that H.O. broke the lock off; and there
were gimlets and screws and things on the floor. There is nothing in that
cupboard but old ledgers and magazines and the tool chest, but of course, a
robber could not know that beforehand.

When Oswald saw that there really was a robber, and that he was so heavily armed
with the screwdriver, he did not feel comfortable. But he kept the pistol
pointed at the robber, and—you will hardly believe it, but it is true—the robber
threw down the screwdriver clattering on the other tools, and he
did throw up his hands, and said—

“I surrender; don’t shoot me! How many of you are there?”

So Dicky said, “You are outnumbered. Are you armed?”

And the robber said, “No, not in the least.”

And Oswald said, still pointing the pistol, and feeling very strong and brave and
as if he was in a book, “Turn out your pockets.”

The robber did: and while he turned them
page: 229 out,
we looked at him. He was of the middle height, and clad in a black frock‐coat
and grey trousers. His boots were a little gone at the sides, and his
shirt‐cuffs were a bit frayed, but otherwise he was of gentlemanly demeanour. He
had a thin, wrinkled face, with big, light eyes that sparkled, and then looked
soft very queerly, and a short beard. In his youth it must have been of a fair
golden colour, but now it was tinged with grey. Oswald was sorry for him,
especially when he saw that one of his pockets had a large hole in it, and that
he had nothing in his pockets but letters and string and three boxes of matches,
and a pipe and a handkerchief and a thin tobacco pouch and two pennies. We made
him put all the things on the table, and then he said—

“Well, you’ve caught me; what are you going to do with me? Police?”

Alice and H.O. had come down to be reinforcements, when they heard a shout, and
when Alice saw that it was a Real Robber, and that he had surrendered, she
clapped her hands and said, “Bravo, boys!” and so did H.O. And now she said, “If
he gives his word of honour not to escape, I shouldn’t call the police: it seems
a pity. Wait till Father comes home.”

page: 230

The robber agreed to this, and gave his word of honour, and asked if he might put
on a pipe, and we said “Yes,” and he sat in Father’s armchair and warmed his
boots, which steamed, and I sent H.O. and Alice to put on some clothes and tell
the others, and bring down Dicky’s and my knickerbockers, and the rest of the
chestnuts.

And they all came, and we sat round the fire, and it was jolly. The robber was
very friendly, and talked to us a great deal.

“I wasn’t always in this low way of business,” he said, when Noël said something
about the things he had turned out of his pockets. ”It’s a great come‐down to a
man like me. But, if I must be caught, it’s something to be caught by brave
young heroes like you. My stars! How you did bolt into the room,—‘Surrender, and
up with your hands!’ You might have been born and bred to the
thief‐catching.”

Oswald is sorry if it was mean, but he could not own up just then that he did not
think there was any one in the study when he did that brave if rash act. He has
told since.

“And what made you think there was any one in the house?” the robber asked,
when
page: 231 he had thrown his head back, and
laughed for quite half a minute. So we told him. And he applauded our valour,
and Alice and H.O. explained that they would have said “surrender,” too, only
they were reinforcements.

The robber ate some of the chestnuts—and we sat and wondered when Father would
come home, and what he would say to us for our intrepid conduct. And the robber
told us of all the things he had done before he began to break into houses.
Dicky picked up the tools from the floor, and suddenly he said—

“Why, this is Father’s screwdriver and his gimlets, and all! Well, I do call it
jolly cheek to pick a man’s locks with his own tools!”

“True, true,” said the robber. “It is cheek, of the jolliest! But you see I’ve
come down in the world. I was a highway robber once, but horses are so expensive
to hire—five shillings an hour, you know—and I couldn’t afford to keep them. The
highwayman business isn’t what it was.”

“What about a bike?” said H.O.

But the robber thought cycles were low—and besides you couldn’t go across country
with them when occasion arose, as you could
page: 232
with a trusty steed. And he talked of highwaymen as if he knew just how we liked
hearing it.

Then he told us how he had been a pirate captain—and how he had sailed over waves
mountains high, and gained rich prizes—and how he did begin to
think that here he had found a profession to his mind.

“I don’t say there are no ups and downs in it,” he said, “especially in stormy
weather. But what a trade! And a sword at your side, and the Jolly Roger flying
at the peak, and a prize in sight. And all the black mouths of your guns pointed
at the laden trader—and the wind in your favour, and your trusty crew ready to
live and die for you! Oh—but it’s a grand life!”

I did feel so sorry for him. He used such nice words, and he had a gentleman’s
voice.

“I’m sure you weren’t brought up to be a pirate,” said Dora. She had dressed even
to her collar—and made Noël do it too—but the rest of us were in blankets with
just a few odd things put on anyhow underneath.

The robber frowned and sighed.

“No,” he said, “I was brought up to the law. I was at Balliol, bless your hearts,
and
page: 233 that’s true anyway.” He sighed again,
and looked hard at the fire.

“That was my Father’s college,” H.O. was beginning, but Dicky said—

“Why did you leave off being a pirate?”

“A pirate?” he said, as if he had not been thinking of such things. “Oh, yes; why
I gave it up because—because I could not get over the dreadful
sea‐sickness.”

“Nelson was sea‐sick,” said Oswald.

“Ah,” said the robber; “but I hadn’t his luck or his pluck, or something. He
stuck to it and won Trafalgar, didn’t he? ‘Kiss me, Hardy’—and all that, eh?
I couldn’t stick to it—I had to resign. And nobody kissed
me.”

I saw by his understanding about Nelson that he was really a man who had been to
a good school as well as to Balliol.

Then we asked him, “And what did you do then?”

And Alice asked if he was ever a coiner, and we told him how we had thought we’d
caught the desperate gang next door, and he was very much interested and said he
was glad he had never taken to coining. “Besides, the coins are so ugly
nowadays,” he said, “no one could really find any pleasure in
page: 234 making them. And it’s a hole and corner business at
the best, isn’t it?—and it must be a very thirsty one—with the hot metal and
furnaces and things.”

And again he looked at the fire.

Oswald forgot for a minute that the interesting stranger was a robber, and asked
him if he wouldn’t have a drink. Oswald has heard Father do this to his friends,
so he knows it is the right thing. The robber said he didn’t mind if he did. And
that is right, too.

And Dora went and got a bottle of Father’s ale—the Light Sparkling Family—and a
glass, and we gave it to the robber. Dora said she would be responsible.

Then when he had had a drink he told us about bandits, but he said it was so bad
in wet weather. Bandits” caves were hardly ever properly weathertight. And
bush‐ranging was the same.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “I was bush‐ranging this afternoon, among the
furze‐bushes on the Heath, but I had no luck. I stopped the Lord Mayor in his
gilt coach, with all his footmen in plush and gold lace, smart as cockatoos. But
it was no go. The Lord Mayor hadn’t a stiver in his pockets.
page: 235 One of the footmen had six new pennies: the Lord
Mayor always pays his servants” wages in new pennies. I spent fourpence of that
in bread and cheese, that on the table’s the tuppence. Ah, it’s a poor trade!”
And then he filled his pipe again.

We had turned out the gas, so that Father should have a jolly good surprise when
he did come home, and we sat and talked as pleasant as could be. I never liked a
new man better than I liked that robber. And I felt so sorry for him. He told us
he had been a war‐correspondent and an editor, in happier days, as well as a
horse‐stealer and a colonel of dragoons.

And quite suddenly, just as we were telling him about Lord Tottenham and our
being highwaymen ourselves, he put up his hand and said “Shish!” and we were
quiet and listened.

There was a scrape, scrape, scraping noise; it came from downstairs.

“They’re filing something,” whispered the robber, “here—shut up, give me that
pistol, and the poker. There is a burglar now, and no mistake.”

“It’s only a toy one and it won’t go off,” I said, “but you can cock it.”

page: 236

Then we heard a snap.

“There goes the window bar,” said the robber softly. “Jove! what an adventure!
You kids stay here, I’ll tackle it.”

But Dicky and I said we should come. So he let us go as far as the bottom of the
kitchen stairs, and we took the tongs and shovel with us. There was a light in
the kitchen; a very little light. It is curious we never thought, any of us,
that this might be a plant of our robber’s to get away. We never thought of
doubting his word of honour. And we were right.

That noble robber dashed the kitchen door open, and rushed in with the big toy
pistol in one hand and the poker in the other, shouting out just like Oswald had
done—

“Surrender! You are discovered! Surrender, or I’ll fire! Throw up your hands!”
And Dicky and I rattled the tongs and shovel so that he might know there were
more of us, all bristling with weapons.

Then we went in. Our robber was standing
page: 237 in the
grandest manner with his legs very wide apart, and the pistol pointing at the
cowering burglar. The burglar was a large man who did not mean to have a beard,
I think, but he had got some of one, and a red comforter, and a fur cap, and his
face was red and his voice was thick. How different from our own robber! The
burglar had a dark lantern, and he was standing by the plate‐basket. When we had
lit the gas we all thought he was very like what a burglar ought to be. He did
not look as if he could ever have been a pirate or a highwayman, or anything
really dashing or noble, and he scowled and shuffled his feet and said: “Well,
go on: why don’t yer fetch the pleece?”

It is not every robber that I would stand Christian names from, I can tell you
but just then I didn’t think of that. I just said—’do you mean I’m to fetch
one?”

Our robber looked at the burglar and said nothing.

Then the burglar began to speak very fast, and to look different ways with his
hard, shiny little eyes.

page: 238

“Lookee “ere, governor,” he said, “I was stony broke, so help me, I was. And
blessed if I’ve nicked a haporth of your little lot. You know yourself there
ain’t much to tempt a bloke,” he shook the plate‐basket as if he was angry with
it, and the yellowy spoons and forks rattled. “I was just a‐looking through this
’ere Bank‐ollerday show, when you come. Let me off, sir. Come now, I’ve got kids
of my own at home, strike me if I ain’t—same as yours—I’ve got a nipper just
about ’is size, and what’ll come of them if I’m lagged? I ain’t been in it long,
sir, and I ain’t ’andy at it.”

“No,” said our robber; “you certainly are not.”

Alice and the others had come down by now to see what was happening. Alice told
me afterwards they thought it really was the cat this time.

“No, I ain’t ’andy, as you say, sir, and if you let me off this once I’ll chuck
the whole blooming bizz; rake my civvy, I will. Don’t be hard on a cove, mister;
think of the missis and the kids. I’ve got one just the cut of little missy
there bless ’er pretty ’eart.”

“You ask yer Father to let me go, miss,” said the burglar; “’e won’t ’ave the
’art to refuse you.”

“If I do,” said Alice, “will you promise never to come back?”

“Not me, miss,” the burglar said very earnestly, and he looked at the
plate‐basket again, as if that alone would be enough to keep him away, our
robber said afterwards.

“And will you be good and not rob any more?” said Alice.

“I’ll turn over a noo leaf, miss, so help me.”

Then Alice said—

”Oh, do let him go! I’m sure he’ll be good.”

But our robber said no, it wouldn’t be right; we must wait till Father came
home.

Then H.O. said, very suddenly and plainly:

“I don’t think it’s at all fair, when you’re a robber yourself.”

page: 240

The minute he’d said it the burglar said, “Kidded, by gum!”—and then our robber
made a step towards him to catch hold of him, and before you had time to think
“Hullo!” the burglar knocked the pistol up with one hand and knocked our robber
down with the other, and was off out of the window like a shot, though Oswald
and Dicky did try to stop him by holding on to his legs.

And that burglar had the cheek to put his head in at the window and say, “I’ll
give yer love to the kids and the missis”—and he was off like winking, and there
were Alice and Dora trying to pick up our robber, and asking him whether he was
hurt, and where. He wasn’t hurt at all, except a lump at the back of his head.
And he got up, and we dusted the kitchen floor off him. Eliza is a dirty
girl.

Then he said, “Let’s put up the shutters. It never rains but it pours. Now you’ve
had two burglars I daresay you’ll have twenty.” So we put up the shutters, which
Eliza has strict orders to do before she goes out, only she never does, and we
went back to Father’s study, and the robber said, “What a night we are having!”
and put his boots back in the fender to go on steaming, and then we all
page: 241 talked at once. It was the most wonderful
adventure we ever had, though it wasn’t treasure‐seeking—at least not ours. I
suppose it was the burglar’s treasure‐seeking, but he didn’t get much—and our
robber said he didn’t believe a word about those kids that were so like Alice
and me.

And then there was the click of the gate, and we said, “Here’s Father,” and the
robber said, “And now for the police.”

Then we all jumped up. We did like him so much, and it seemed so unfair that he
should be sent to prison, and the horrid, lumping big burglar not.

And Alice said, “Oh, no—run! Dicky will let you out at the back
door. Oh, do go, go now.”

And we all said, “Yes, go,” and pulled him towards the door, and
gave him his hat and stick and the things out of his pockets.

But Father’s latchkey was in the door, and it was too late.

Father came in quickly, purring with the cold, and began to say, ”It’s all right,
Foulkes, I’ve got—” And then he stopped short and stared at us. Then he said, in
the voice we all hate, ”Children, what is the meaning of all this?”

page: 242

And for a minute nobody spoke.

Then my Father said, “Foulkes, I must really apologize for these very
naughty—”

And then our robber rubbed his hands and laughed, and cried out:

“You’re mistaken, my dear sir, I’m not Foulkes; I’m a robber, captured by these
young people in the most gallant manner. ‘Hands up, surrender, or I fire,’ and
all the rest of it. My word, Bastable, but you’ve got some kids worth having! I
wish my Denny had their pluck.”

Then we began to understand, and it was like being knocked down, it was so
sudden. And our robber told us he wasn’t a robber after all. He was only an old
college friend of my Father’s, and he had come after dinner, when Father was
just trying to mend the lock H.O. had broken, to ask Father to get him a letter
to a doctor about his little boy Denny, who was ill. And Father had gone over
the Heath to Vanbrugh Park to see some rich people he knows and get the letter.
And he had left Mr. Foulkes to wait till he came back, because it was important
to know at once whether Father could get the letter, and if he couldn’t Mr.
Foulkes would have had to try some one else directly.

We were dumb with amazement.

page: 243

Our robber told my Father about the other burglar, and said he was sorry he’d let
him escape, but my Father said, “Oh, it’s all right: poor beggar; if he really
had kids at home: you never can tell—forgive us our debts, don’t you know; but
tell me about the first business. It must have been moderately
entertaining.”

Then our robber told my Father how I had rushed into the room with a pistol,
crying out ... but you know all about that. And he laid it on so thick and fat
about plucky young uns, and chips of old blocks, and things like that, that I
felt I was purple with shame, even under the blanket. So I swallowed that thing
that tries to prevent you speaking when you ought to, and I said, “Look here,
Father, I didn’t really think there was any one in the study. We thought it was
a cat at first, and then I thought there was no one there, and I was just
larking. And when I said surrender and all that, it was just the game, don’t you
know?”

Then our robber said, “Yes, old chap; but when you found there really
was someone there, you dropped the pistol and bunked, didn’t
you, eh?”

And I said, “No; I thought, ‘Hullo! here’s a robber! Well, it’s all up, I
suppose,
page: 244 but I may as well hold on and see
what happens.’”

And I was glad I’d owned up, for Father slapped me on the back, and said I was a
young brick, and our robber said I was no funk anyway, and though I got very hot
under the blanket I liked it, and I explained that the others would have done
the same if they had thought of it.

Then Father got up some more beer, and laughed about Dora’s responsibility, and
he got out a box of figs he had bought for us, only he hadn’t given it to us
because of the Water Rates, and Eliza came in and brought up the bread and
cheese, and what there was left of the neck of mutton—cold wreck of mutton,
Father called it—and we had a feast—like a picnic—all sitting anywhere, and
eating with our fingers. It was prime. We sat up till past twelve o’clock, and I
never felt so pleased to think I was not born a girl. It was hard on the others;
they would have done just the same if they’d thought of it. But it does make you
feel jolly when your pater says you’re a young brick!

When Mr. Foulkes was going, he said to Alice, “Good‐bye, Hardy.”

And Alice understood, of course, and kissed him as hard as she could.

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And she said, “I wanted to, when you said no one kissed you when you left off
being a pirate.”

And he said, “I know you did, my dear.”

And Dora kissed him too, and said, “I suppose none of these tales were true?”

And our robber just said, “I tried to play the part properly, my dear.”

And he jolly well did play it, and no mistake. We have often seen him since, and
his boy Denny, and his girl Daisy, but that comes in another story.

And if any of you kids who read this ever had two such adventures in one night
you can just write and tell me. That’s all.